Just wondering if you've had your hands on one of these yet? I was going to buy the 70-300 DO IS over the 70-200 F4L just to get the IS so this new lens was well timed for me. Will hold off until this new lens is available (can't wait until November) and some reports have filtered in.

I was told end of the month... Canon is usually pretty accurate on their estimates. Of course that is wishful thinking. I have one on order. I had a 70-300 DO and sold it. I actually had two. THe first one i had was terrible. I had one of the first lenses. I sold mine and the person I sold it to months later showed me a comparison with a second lens. As a result, I bought a second lens. The second was clearly better than the first. HOwever, the optics were not as good as the 70-200/4. The IS was outstanding so without a tripod could get better handheld shots with the DO. The DO suffered from low contrast and was soft at the edges on the ff DSLRs. The 70-200/4 and 70-200 L IS are outstanding from an optic point of view. Mark

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Hi Michael,

Just wondering if you've had your hands on one of these yet? I was going to buy the 70-300 DO IS over the 70-200 F4L just to get the IS so this new lens was well timed for me. Will hold off until this new lens is available (can't wait until November) and some reports have filtered in.

I'm just going off a local supplier's web site. It says November 2006, no actual date. We tend to get things a little later than the rest of the world here in oz.

I don't really need the 300 end of the DO, was just thinking about it for the IS, then the new 70-200 was announced. 4 stops extra with hand held shots, that's nice. I bought my first L series lens (a 24-105) when I got my new 30D earlier in the year. Couldn't believe the difference between it and my old USM lens. I think I'm getting a taste for the L glass...

Hope someone gets a hold of one to review soon. I'd like to see some reports on the optics.

I have a 70-300 DO and am very, very pleased with it. Sharpness, saturation, and contrast at 300mm are very close to what I get from my 300mm f/4L prime. There is noticeably more optical distortion than the prime, and field of view at less than infinity focus isn't as tight, but those are to be expected from any zoom.

One of the things I had to learn, though, is to NOT use a UV filter with it. For whatever reason the UV filter with a DO optic seems to reduce contrast and saturation quite a lot. I keep a Canon UV filter on all of my other lenses for protection, but not the DO.

All of that said, though, the 70-200 f/4 L is a better quality lens if you don't need reach to 300mm, need one more stop of aperture, don't mind the white color, can't afford the DO lens, or any combination of the above. The IS version of the 70-200 is probably nearly as good as the non-IS (if past relative performance of Canon's IS upgrades is a guide). I bought the 70-300 DO for convenience and inconspicuity, but am surprised and continuously impressed by it's image quality.

For example, at 70mm and 100mm the 70-300 DO is better than the 24-105 L. If I want absolutely the best image quality and have the time, then I use the 85 f/1.8, 100 f/2.8 macro, 135 f/2 L, 200 f/2.8 L, or 300 f/4 L.